Institute for Social Renewal - Threefold Society

Modern economic life is based on efficiency and technical expertise. As such, economic life can be characterized from two perspectives. On the one hand, it is creative and produces the wealth and comforts that we enjoy as members of a modern society. Indeed, the true purpose of economic life is to provide the goods and services that we need to live here on earth. However, economic production, the transforming of nature into usable goods and services, is the result of environmentally destructive processes. A primary challenge regarding economic activity is how to counterbalance its inherent destructive aspects with sustainable practices.

Just as economic life is dependent on the reserves of nature in order to create goods and services, so too is it dependent on the political rights life for the social guidelines and parameters for its activities, and on cultural life for it ethical standards and human capacities. There is nothing in the nature of economic life itself from which social and ethical impulses can arise. This is not the nature or purpose of economic life and is, therefore, not an indication of something wrong or evil in economic activity itself. These impulses need to be supplied from the other sectors of life. When economic interests try to use their resources and accumulated power to interfere with the recognition and upholding of human rights or to direct the development of ethical values to their own ends they commit a malevolent act.

The division of labor and the associated necessity to accumulate capital to carry on business are also essential aspects of modern economic life. The division of labor and technical advancement require capital. Capital, as an economic power in service of humanity, is productive and good. Only when capital is used in a self-serving way by its owners or as a cultural or political power is it a harmful agent.

Because economic life is in reality a living organism, it requires rejuvenating forces on an ongoing basis to sustain itself. Historically, this was achieved through mergers and ever-expanding trade between various local, regional and national economies. Presently, as a single, interdependent, enclosed world economy this is no longer possible without undue exploitation of human and environmental resources. We have reached the end of any overall benefit from accelerated growth. Rejuvenation must now come from a creative vital cultural life and the intelligent use of purchase, loan, and gift money.

Dependency on the hitherto so-called unregulated, impersonal, competitive market based on self-interested behavior and the profit motive needs to be replaced by conscious, collaborative associations of producers, distributors, and consumers guided by insight and human intelligence. Both the capitalistic impersonal market and the socialistic command economies need to replaced with an inclusive and participatory associative economy. Genuine social needs, service on behalf of humanity, rather than self-interested behavior needs to arise as the operating principle of economic life in the future.